Completion of a Ceremony

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko is written with great symbolism and themes that uncover social stigmas about  native race and culture as well as alcoholism and post traumatic stress. At the finish of the book Tayo completes his own ceremony by healing from his PTS and learning the truth about the world he lives in. Throughout the end of the book Tayo is tempted with things that would let the destroyers win. For example he is tempted to go out and drink with his "friends" but he does not because he knows about the ceremony. His friends choose the road of escapism through alcohol and eventually that causes them to turn against them. "He knew then that they were not his friends but had turned against him....He was not sure why he was crying, for the betrayal or because they were lost"(Silko 225). In this way the book shows what Tayo could have been if he chose not to heal. Once Emo and his gang gather at the bomb site the true evil and witchery is revealed. The setting is in the old atomic bomb site which is a symbol for the power and destruction that humans are capable. Silko says that "They left behind only the barbed-wire fences, the watchman's shack, and the hole in the earth" (Silko 226).  Tayo recognizes that whites are not to blame for the destruction but witchery and anyone can give into witchery, case in point his friends.One of the most telling lessons that Tayo is forced to learn is peace when violence sounds like a good option. Tayo has the option to save one of his friends from Emo but chooses not too because that would be destruction and violence. This is an act of healing that finally completes Tayos story.
Although I thought the ending of the book was powerful it was confusing. The poem on page 237 that starts with "Hummingbird and Fly...." (Silko 237) makes no sense to me and I think it is a tool to help wrap up the book. Additionally Silko does not wrap up what happens with Ts'eh and Tayo. Is this a part of post-modernism? Also throughout the book Tayo speaks a lot to how whites treat Natives and Silko does not really make a statement about this. The closest thing to this is Silko's message of healing and resisting witchery.